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Guidelines for Animation/Motion Sickness?

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From: Elizabeth Pyatt
Date: May 2, 2017 11:40AM


The use of animation on Web sites is something I am seeing more of in sites we review and I had a question about updated animation guidelines in relation to vestibular disorders such as motion sickness, vertigo or headaches. Some interesting sites that I could see being problematic (at least to me) include:

http://www.digitalhands.net
http://hellomonday.com
https://www.adamunderwear.com

And also iPhone 7 - http://www.webaxe.org/vestibular-issues-parallax-design/

I know WCAG 2.0 restricts videos/animations to 5 seconds (unless a pause button is provided), but even so it seems like some 5 seconds can be too long for some animation effects. I did find some recommendations/discussions at these sites

https://alistapart.com/article/designing-safer-web-animation-for-motion-sensitivity
http://www.webaxe.org/vestibular-issues-parallax-design/

So...have people encountered this kind of issue on websites they review, and if so, what guidelines do people recommend? I don't think it's quite covered in WCAG, but yet is an issue to address.

Hope this makes sense.

Thanks
Elizabeth

P.S. Actually, I can handle the iPhone, but I will confess that some parallax animations can give me a headache.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-Elizabeth J. Pyatt, Ph.D.
Accessibility IT Consultant
Teaching and Learning with Technology
Penn State University
<EMAIL REMOVED> , (814) 865-0805 or (814) 865-2030 (Main Office)

The 300 Building
304 West College Avenue
University Park, PA 16801
http://accessibility.psu.edu